> In one system you get to be crammed into a little train car with dozens of other people, in the other system you have some privacy and personal space and a seat...
If you have enough money for both options, then it's not surprising that the option which costs at least an order of magnitude more provides a slightly more comfortable seat.
Barbaric is a fun word, but one that would be easy to twist the other way. In one system you get to be crammed into a little train car with dozens of other people, in the other system you have some privacy and personal space and a seat...
Again, pros and cons all over the place... the US doesn't have good trains because it built other systems instead due to the point in time in which many of its cities developed, and they are "good enough" that most people would see little benefit from ripping it all up to replace it with trains.
It's worth noting too that "they make the trains run on time" is literally a cliche about certain types of government at this point, not some unique accomplishment.